I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

An artist's concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it.

Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.

I don't have a deep link with England like, say, Jonathan Coe or Hanif Kureishi might demonstrate. For me it is like a mythical place.

She always wanted to believe in things.

Throughout my career I've struggled to encourage people to read my books on a more metaphorical level. I'm less attached to my settings than, for example, Saul Bellow. The setting of a novel for me is just a part of the technique. I choose it at the end.

I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.